Early Screening for Colon Cancer Saves Lives!

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

As we’ve been promoting, March is Colorectal Cancer Education and Awareness Month. We hope that you’ve seen our posts onFacebook and Twitter (@FLHCC) highlighting the need to encourage those you cover to get screened for this disease. Early screening can help save lives!

On that note, we hosted a webcast on March 18 entitled, “Love Your Colon: Raising Colon Cancer Screening Awareness.” This webinar provided insights on how employers can raise awareness among their employees and covered lives to get screened early for signs of colon cancer. A special “thank you!” to our presenter, Sonali Dash, Program Manager for Genentech. Genentech andMagellan Rx Management were our webcast sponsors.

Ms. Dash shared some history about the “Love Your Colon” initiative, including its beginnings in South Carolina by the Colon Cancer Action Committee when it was recognized that SC residents had an abnormally high rate of colon cancer. Genentech has formalizedLove Your Colon nationally, providing valuable information that helps organizations across the US improve their screening and prevention outcomes.

Ms. Dash also provided statistics that really hit home with participants who understand the impacts that cancer has on absenteeism and lost productivity in the workplace. For example, did you know that colon cancer is the third largest cancer-related killer of both men and women in the world? It is estimated that 49,700 people will die of colon cancer in 2015. Yet, if everyone over 50 years of age would get screened, 60% of colon cancer deaths could be avoided by early detection of precancerous polyps; and if caught early, colon cancer can be treated 90% of the time!

We hope that our members and partners will take the messages and information we’ve provided this month to heart and encourage early screening of your employees and covered lives. Genentech offers employers several customizable informational flyers and other promotional materials to help them conduct effective screening campaigns, as well as provide information for employees, guiding them through the screening process.

If you were not able to make the original webcast, you can view ithere in its entirety. Each month, we have timely and relevant topics via webcast and we hope you will plan to join us for our next event, “Site of Care Management for Employer Groups” on April 15. Mark your calendar and CLICK HERE to register.